Pandora Wins Privacy Case

The Detroit News has the details about a Michigan man who lost his case claming Pandora violated his privacy by publicly sharing his preferences. The state Supreme Court ruled Peter Deacon isn’t legally considered a customer, and Pandora listeners can opt to pay to use a version without commercials but “there is nothing to suggest” that Deacon did.

Deacon alleged in a class-action lawsuit that Pandora violated the state’s Video Rental Privacy Act “by disclosing his name, listening history, bookmarked artists and bookmarked songs so they were searchable on the Internet and viewable by his Facebook friends.”

The state law defines “customer” as “a person who … rents, or borrows … a sound recording,” they wrote. The court also wrote that “We hold that plaintiff was not a person who ‘rent[ed]’ a sound recording because he did not give payment for it. We further hold that plaintiff was not a person who ‘borrow[ed]’ a sound recording because there was no promise, implied or expressed, that he would ‘return’ the sound recording or its equivalent to defendant. We therefore conclude that plaintiff was not a ‘customer.”